Thurn&Taxis

[Dana Bordan]

hi everybody
iUm working on a study about the beginning of private communication by mail in
Europe for the Humboldt-University of Berlin, Germany. As I remembered Pynchon
had written a couple of paragraphs about the Thurn & Taxis monopole in HThe
Crying of Lot 49G .
So IUve just reread it and indeed - as you all know - there is some stuff on T
& T, which IUm comparing by now with documents and reports on the history of the
mail system - but of course thatUs just the popular representation of
history...
I wonder if any underground communication system, like W.A.S.T.E. e.g.
(obviously :-) ) existed at that time in Europe or in America. I donUt want to
dig to deep into the whole thing (IUm not indentifying with the role of
Oedipa), but if there is someone out there who could help me with any
informations or references about something comparable to W.A.S.T.E. I would be
very gratefull.
If there is interest I would post my article, which also includes some thoughts
on the difference between monopolized and decentralized mail systems, to the
list. (Of course, itUll be in German, :-( ) (BTW - I would appreciate any hints
on the development of E-mail too.)
TIA
Dana Bordan
dana at contrib.de